MagicSolver

GDC Europe: The Onward March of Mobile

GDC Europe is one of the gaming industry’s biggest events, offering developers, marketers and product managers a chance to hear talks and catch up on some of the major developments within the industry. This year, The App Show was on ground zero, measuring the pulse of an event that seemed to indicate one thing in particular: mobile apps are on their way to the big time (if they aren’t already there).

When wandering around the venue, what stuck out the most was the sheer number of people who were actively courting the mobile audience. MagicSolver were there, showing off their user acquisition options, but major game makers like GameDuell, MiniClip and Rovio sent strong delegations to try and catch the attention of the crowds. Even Nintendo, so famously anti-app, had a stall set up, and were trying to tempt mobile devs and programmers to move to WiiU with Unity, the cross platform development kit.

That interest translated into some seriously well attended talks and the most popular of these were about mobile games. Tommy Palm, Games Guru at King, captivated an audience looking to make their games as successful as Candy Crush Saga. Tom Hess of DeNa helped provide fascinating insights into how to turn Japanese games genres into Western Hits. And the anarchic story behind the release of Vlambeer’s Ridiculous Fishing drew indie developers in their droves as they looked to bottle the essence of one of the real success stories of the last few years.

We managed to catch up with some other big names who were offering their two cents on mobile development and the state of the industry. Alistair Aitcheson, indie developer and writer for Pocket Gamer Biz spoke to us about the art of multiplayer tablet gameplay, while Anders Jepsen of Blackberry discussed why he thought the beleaguered handset maker could still offer a great platform for developers.

But it wasn’t just the major players who were showing off interesting wares. The App Show also spoke to a couple of companies about how they were using advanced motion technology developed by Open NI, to offer completely new experiences for different markets. Olivier Mertens, COO of VTree, showed us how they were using the technology to create motion control apps for TV and games for mobile, meanwhile, Chuck Bergen of ActiveMe was keen to chat about how his company are creating motion controlled games accessible to people with disabilities, particularly injured military veterans.

Ultimately though, what we discovered at GDC was an industry that is truly thriving, and an environment that is ready place mobile apps on the pedestal that they deserve.

You can listen to The App Show by downloading the podcast at http://bit.ly/msappshow